A replication and extension of Kahn (2007), "Do greens drive Hummers or hybrids? Environmental ideology as a determinant of consumer choice," JEEM 53(2).
Research questions:
- Do California communities with stronger climate change beliefs still exhibit lower-carbon transportation behavior today?
- Does climate ideology predict EV ownership — and does it predict Tesla ownership differently from non-Tesla EV ownership?
- Has the correlation between climate ideology and Tesla ownership shifted following Elon Musk's political pivot and his role in the Trump administration?
See CLAUDE.md for full project overview, methodology, and data sources.
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txtRun scripts in order. Each script downloads raw data to data/raw/ and writes cleaned outputs to data/processed/.
python scripts/01_acquire_cec.py # CEC ZEV population data (2010–2024)
python scripts/02_acquire_acs.py # ACS 5-year tract-level demographics
python scripts/03_acquire_ideology.py # YCOM, voter registration, ballot measures
python scripts/04_crosswalk.py # Geographic crosswalk tables
python scripts/05_build_panel.py # Merge into tract×year panelScript 04 builds four crosswalk tables:
| Output | Mapping | Method |
|---|---|---|
crosswalk_zip_tract.csv |
ZCTA → 2020 Census tract | Area-proportional weights |
crosswalk_prec_tract_g22.csv |
2022 precinct → 2020 Census tract | GeoPandas spatial overlay |
crosswalk_prec_tract_p18.csv |
2018 precinct → 2020 Census tract | GeoPandas spatial overlay |
crosswalk_county_tract.csv |
County FIPS → 2020 Census tract | GEOID prefix lookup |
All crosswalks target 2020 Census tract definitions to align with the 2023 ACS.
- CEC ZEV Population Data: https://www.energy.ca.gov/zevstats
- ACS 5-Year Estimates: US Census Bureau API
- Yale Climate Opinion Maps (YCOM): https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us/
- CA Voter Registration: CA Secretary of State
- CA Statement of Vote: CA Secretary of State
- Precinct Shapefiles: UC Berkeley Statewide Database
- TIGER/Line Tracts: US Census Bureau
scripts/ Analysis pipeline (numbered, self-contained)
data/
raw/ Downloaded source data (gitignored)
processed/ Cleaned outputs (gitignored)
assumptions/ Methodology documentation
paper/ Substack/website draft
notebooks/ Exploratory analysis
output/ Figures and tables (gitignored)